Re-education
by CodaEvermore
Summary: It is the same Cecil, still. Even if Station Management have other ideas about how to 're-educate' him, there is one thing that remains. Oneshot.


"Goodnight, Night Vale."

And it is a good night. There is no reason, in all of the space and time that surrounds this little hamlet, that it should not be so. The stars are shining. The moon is shining. Insofar as the moon exists.

"Goodnight."

It is a good night. It is a beautiful night. And, as Cecil leans back in his chair, removing the headset from his head, he finds he still has a smile upon his face. For he knows that out there, somewhere, tonight, there is a man with perfect hair. And out of all the multiverse, out of all the universes and planets and realms hidden beneath the bowling alley, he is within the nearest mile.

His beautiful, perfect, miraculous Carlos exists.

He closes his eyes, contentedly, as if he were falling asleep; a lingering smile still on his face.

"Cecil?"

He does not open his eyes at the sound, which seems to strangely bypass all aural orifices and instead enters his mind, directly. He has no need. It is programmed into him how to respond to Station Management; how to listen to the familiar words and follow, numbly, unquestioning.

"Cecil, It Is Time For Your Re-Education."

"Yeah, one moment." The strange, suffocating, strangely shadow-like aura disappears, leaving behind only what was there before. And which will exist tomorrow, exactly the same.

It is only when the door clicks shut, as dramatic as the slamming of a cage behind a monster, that Cecil dares to open his eyes.

And he sets to work. His movements are clockwork, methodical; for he has performed these actions many, many times before, in a manner of speaking. Except each time the determination, the passion grows. As he searches, high and low, for a pen. Slowly at first, then with a kind of feverish frenzy; ripping out drawers, sweeping across his desk, until he lays a hand upon it.

Then he writes. He sits down at his desk and he writes, simply; the words pour out of him without pause, without stopping. And then he clears up his office, and he puts everything back in its place, and the note is left beneath his headset when he gets up and leaves, for his re-education. His name is written clearly at the top.

"Not all is as it seems."

Cecil, the voice of Night Vale, sits at his desk on yet another average night in this nocturnal little hamlet. He is perfectly, happy, of course. He has never had any reason not to be.

He glances out of the window of the recording booth, the reflection of the door to Station Management observing his work eerily. Not that the town's commentator is particularly aware of its presence. His mind is too obsessed, as is expected, with other affairs.

Namely the affairs listed in the letter he holds in his hand.

Behind the closed door, Station Management communicate, moaning softly, about tonight's 're-education'.

And Cecil is... perfect. He feels perfect. Certainly, his mind feels like a canvas that has had paint only recently splashed over it, still not quite dry. It is not an unpleasant feeling. His mind is still tacky, malleable; and therefore, completely suited to the nature of the job he undertakes now. He pulls the microphone a little closer to his mouth, left hand taking control, right hand still firmly gripped around the paper that he stares at as he speaks.

"Welcome." A dramatic pause, and he almost misses his cue as he stares at the paper, absorbing it with all remaining energy, so tightly his fingers almost tear holes in the paper. "to Night Vale."

The click of the sound tracks changing is masked only by his smile as he leans back, swinging his legs as a child in a playground, a child who has found a lucky penny.

One words, scrawled over and over and over again; overlapping, large, small, barely legible.

_CarlosCarlosCarlosCarlosCarlosCarlosCarlosCarlosCarlosCarlosCarlos_

In an unknown basement in an undisclosed location (which, naturally, everybody in town is aware of), there are rooms. In one of these cells, there is a body; placed there this morning, it almost looks alive, still.

It is fine. He was never alive. At least, not in the heart-pumping, blood-and-bones kind of way. Only a day in operation, at that.

Beside him lies a body. And another body. And another, beside _him_. And it continues on, and on, and looking at them you might marvel at the workmanship that goes into making each one _exactly_ identical.

At the radio station, another night begins. And Cecil speaks, with an urgency and an eloquence that only he can muster, and it is the same Cecil that the town knows and loves; the same Cecil who wrote the words on the paper he clutches in his fist, refusing entirely to let go.


End file.
